The 100 day standard isn’t very fair. Ambitious goals require time. For example, at the current rate, it doesn’t seem very likely that Trump will play more golf that Obama did in his entire 8-year term for another few months.
Similarly there was a common refrain that Obama created ISIS, which was equally impossible given that it happened before Obama. Does that absolve him of any blame for ISIS-related failures? Not at all, just the creation of it.
If I’m not mistaken, this reference was about the ISIL state created inside Syria. Obama waited til Damascus was obliterated before doing anything. American tax payers forked out billions of dollars to weaponize resistance fighters, those resistance fighters turned against us and took all those toys with them to Syria. That is why the claim that Obama created ISIS was used by Trump.
No. The reason why Trump claimed that Obama created ISIS is because Trump just makes up lots of random accusations, be they valid or not. You are retconning Trump’s intent by assigning reasoning that Trump was likely never even aware of at the time he said it.
Okay, I’ll back up my point if you can back up yours? Naw, I’m not like that, here is something to read. I don’t know what Trump knows or doesn’t know and when he knows it or doesn’t but if you do, good on you.
Just for kicks, I followed the link. Holy cow. I didn’t know there were sites still linking to InfoWars as a “more information” source for their articles, since Alex Jones came out and said “Oh, it’s all just made up conspiracy theories for the gullible–I’m just a performance artist.” That statement, being something that actually happened, must be slow-traveling news in some circles. Apparently InfoWars is still not a red flag for whacked out unsubstantiated BS for the entire world quite yet.
This is venturing a little off topic from refugees to illegal immigration now, but certainly the lax immigration stance of the U.S. government in the last generation or so has been one of the big factors in driving down U.S. wages and decreasing the average standard of living.
You realize that the net undocumented movement into and out of the US has been effectively zero (technically, a slight net loss) for about the past decade, right? It’s basically like the entire Obama administration was an experiment in what happens when there’s zero new illegal immigration. It’s very much like a big wall was constructed, except much cheaper and actually effective. Zero can be a big factor, though, for extremely small values of big.
The big increase in illegal immigration that was triggered a few decades back (the tail end of which lasted into this century–so your “last generation” comment could be referring to part of this) was because the Reagan administration severely tightened controls. What used to be relatively lax movement of seasonal workers back and forth got dramatically restricted, and those seasonal workers eventually had to choose which side they’d rather be stuck on–and they chose the US side. So tightening immigration policies is actually what led to the last real boom in illegal immigration in the US. Not that we don’t have people hard at work fabricating a more recent imaginary boom in illegal immigration due to an imaginary lax immigration stance.
Economists generally agree that the effects of immigration on the U.S. economy are broadly positive. This includes refugees, so perhaps the household metaphor is too simplistic.
@Frink:
Also:
Two forks feel tingly flipping meat.
Twin foxes fart twice for months.
Thanks for fixing that for me.
@Alderaan:
Nevermind, I failed to find common ground. The idea that IS sprang forth from a quarter-assed arms campaign and not from the long-term blistering resentment of Arab populations to their own foreign-backed oppressive regimes is just something that’s too far out there for me, as is the idea that we should think twice about accepting refugees simply because 15% or so of our population is comprised of congenital bigots who might behave badly (and still not as badly as the people the refugees are fleeing, nor much more badly than the bigots were behaving before the refugees arrived).
Obama “cool” wasn’t all about sunglasses, or keeping an even tone of voice. It was also cool as in Instagramming pictures of his wife on a yacht.
TFFTFM.
The fact is that the Obama administration was right to end the Iraq War, and wrong to essentially bring 6 years of civil war to Syria.
I think it’s pretty clear we see things differently on a lot of matters, but there’s something salient here I think we can maybe agree on. I think a lot of people who supported Obama saw his anti-Iraq War stance and then were surprised by his later positions in various conflicts. The thing is, Obama is no pacifist, and never was. Nor is he a saber-rattling human-rights-defending pro-democracy militant. His opposition to Iraq was practical, not ideological: it simply didn’t make any g****mn sense to support a war that pretty much exclusively benefitted Iran and was also a terrible drag on the US. It was, in many ways, coldly calculating and utilitarian–what purpose did this war serve? If we don’t benefit, who does? If the accounts don’t add up–fuck it, he’s out.
This same cool, detached analysis led to, well, nothing much in Syria, as you said. Who would benefit from various degrees of intervention? It was hard for him to come up with a formulation where it benefitted the US. The most he could muster was attempting to order a cruise missile attack on Syrian military facilities, but because he sought permission from Congress, that also led to nothing. The only thing of consequence he really did was provide fairly meager support for refugees trying to escape that war, which only looks generous in contrast with today. But he did it only because there’s no real downside for the US to resettle Syrian refugees.
Obama “cool” wasn’t all about sunglasses, or keeping an even tone of voice. It was also cool as in calculating, both in good and bad ways.
The executive branch ordering its intelligence services to find support for an outlandish and unsupported claim that everyone with any knowledge in the matter immediately knew was BS from the very beginning, but they just can’t let it go? It’s like I’ve heard that somewhere before.
Oddly, I’ve never heard an instance of one of these “investigations” starting in one administration and continuing on through a party transition. It’s like the intelligence agencies know the difference between a BS politically motivated investigation and one based on real evidence. They immediately drop the BS investigations like a hot potato, but keep soldiering on with the real ones.
So are you saying Obama didn’t campaign on ending the Iraq War?
Nope. Wonder where that came from.
And didn’t take credit for ending the Iraq War?
I don’t think he ever took credit for the agreement with the Iraqi government, but he did take credit for being one of the earliest voices of reason in the Senate, an opinion which eventually won over most Americans and led to Bush ending the Iraq War. That all seems fair to me.
But then a few years later when Islamic State is a big deal, and people are saying U.S. troops left too early, he didn’t try and make the case that the pullout was all on Bush anyway?
The pullout was all on the Bush administration (and the Iraqi government, who also demanded that timetable), and anyone who said so was simply being truthful. I’m not in any way denying that the truth can serve to advance certain political positions, and in his case it absolutely lined up to support Obama. Whether the withdrawal was really the direct cause of the success of ISIS in those years he never addressed AFAIK, focusing instead on the fact that the RW pundits were getting the facts wrong, which they were. In many ways, I feel that was always a red herring with other factors such as high oil prices and the increasingly sectarian division within Iraq being closer to the root causes. IMO, the US troops were just a lid on the Iraqi pressure cooker. The longer they stayed, the more pressure would be released when they left. And if they tried to stay forever, it would just explode.
Treaties are pieces of paper. They get ignored all the time.
Sure, they get ignored. And ignoring that particular piece of paper would have been an act of war (huge presence of foreign troops in a country against the expressed wishes of that government–pretty much dictionary definition of act of war). Yes, an option available to Obama. A shitty, irresponsible choice that would have needlessly endangered the lives of our soldiers and made conditions in Iraq even worse, but a choice he nevertheless had the option to make. Strangely enough, he didn’t seem to consider it.
I don’t think it’s accurate to say that because Bush had negotiated for an Iraq pullout in 2011, that Obama was bound by that. He could have done whatever he wanted, as he often did. So I think that’s kind of a dubious claim.
Yes, he could have kept our forces there against the will of the Iraqi government simply by re-invading, or knocking over that government and installing yet another government that agreed to our continued presence. That was definitely an option available to him.
The US is not magically released from agreements and treaties it makes with other governments simply because the presidency changes hands. Nobody would bother signing a treaty with us if that were the case.
I think part of the issue is that Obama’s policies were often criticized not directly, but by using oddly specific made-up statistics. By arguing with those imaginary statistics (but not the implied policy criticism), it often ended up making that implied criticism point back to a point in time prior to the Obama administration, whether or not the implied criticism was ever valid in the first place.
I don’t think the veracity of the blame-assignment is relevant. Partisans are going to be partisan.
Well, sure. But part of the problem of Democrats spending more time arguing against made up conspiracy theories is that they spend less time arguing the merits of the policy. Which means the Dems (and the public) may assume their policies are good simply because the arguments being made against it have no merit. And that’s not necessarily true at all. I wish people had challenged Obama’s policies more on the merit of those policies–it may have actually shifted the political discussion and gotten something changed.
I just caught a moment of Harball and saw Chris Matthews criticizing Trump for taking a “blame everything on Obama” approach. Pretty sure he never criticized Obama for taking the “blame everything on Bush” approach for almost his entire presidency.
I think part of the issue is that Obama’s policies were often criticized not directly, but by using oddly specific made-up statistics. By arguing with those imaginary statistics (but not the implied policy criticism), it often ended up making that implied criticism point back to a point in time prior to the Obama administration, whether or not the implied criticism was ever valid in the first place.
For example, RW pundits often said Obama decided to pull out of Iraq too fast, and Obama correctly stated that the pullout timetable was negotiated and finalized by the Bush administration. Does that absolve him entirely of the conditions in Iraq post-pullout? Not at all. Does it mean that the conditions in Iraq were determined by the pullout timetable? It doesn’t really address that part of the question at all. But the pullout itself was absolutely, positively, not his call. By arguing with the made-up statistic, however, he avoided talking about the conditions in Iraq, and also didn’t have to address if the timetable was related to the conditions there. Intentional? Maybe. But I think it falls more on the side of “correcting the record” than “shifting the blame”, when you’re responding to something that’s factually inaccurate to begin with.
Similarly there was a common refrain that Obama created ISIS, which was equally impossible given that it happened before Obama. Does that absolve him of any blame for ISIS-related failures? Not at all, just the creation of it.
Similarly, RW pundits often said that 75 straight months of job growth was impossible, that the feds were fudging the statistics, and the economy was weak. Obama correctly pointed out that the numbers were calculated the same way they always were, and that you can have 75 straight months of job growth and still have a weak economy if you’re starting out from a position of extraordinary weakness 75 months ago, which did in fact exist.
I think the difference here is that, if a criticism is missing the made-up statistics, you can’t dodge or deflect the issue by arguing with the made-up statistics (well, I suppose you could try to argue with reality, but that tends to be obvious). I’m sure there was some blame-shifting under Obama, but at least as far as I can remember, it was much more canny and could certainly be interpreted, much of the time, as simply correcting the record.
The key part is that last paragraph. It means at least some of the dossier was independently corroborated.
Actually I believe several things about the dossier have been independently corroborated, but many of those things were not really related to any of the juicier headline-grabbing details. Just technical stuff, so-and-so Russian person was a agent for such-and-such Russian intelligence service, etc. Nevertheless, so far, the dossier has proven right whenever enough evidence was available to prove or disprove it… which still hasn’t been a lot, yet.
Ah, the fact that you were singling out Democrats made me think it was a strawman argument countering Republican interference, rather than a strawman argument countering Russian interference.
Like the Democrats have never meddled in the elections of other countries.
Are you arguing with anyone here? Just wondering who’s making the claims on the other side.
Theresa May, the current British Prime Minister, has called a General Election to be held on Thursday 8th June…
(which is a bit of a U-turn - even for her)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-39629603
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/apr/18/theresa-may-uk-general-election-8-june
How do you call an early election? - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-39630209
Is my understanding correct that this isn’t really expected to change anything substantive? i.e. the people, parliamentary percentages, policies, etc, aren’t really expected to change much at all, but this is really more about getting May out from under that “temporary caretaker government” shadow after Cameron left?
http://www.avclub.com/article/alex-jones-performance-artist-playing-character-at-253829?
I’m actually disappointed, I quite enjoyed the mystery.
Pfft. We’ve been hearing this line for decades, just not from him until now. Someone makes their living slandering and vilifying both individuals and entire classes of people, causing real harm, and their defense is “Just kidding! Jeeze, can’t you take a joke?”. From Limbaugh to Yiannapoulos and now Jones. It’s a dodge as despicable as the language it’s trying to cover, because nobody (supporters or detractors) is expected to actually believe them, it’s just the barest possible fig leaf.
Hmm, I think I’ll have to check out Manos, since everyone says such “great things” about the movie. 😃
Manos is fine and all (that Torgo theme really sticks with you), but I actually like the short that precedes it better (“Hired!”). But I’m a big fan of those rare moments where absolutely nothing they can say could possibly make it weirder.
cryptically dramatic
Hello new user titl… grr, dammit Jay!
‘British spies were first to spot Trump team’s links with Russia’:-
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/apr/13/british-spies-first-to-spot-trump-team-links-russia
&
GCHQ ‘told US security services about meetings between Donald Trump’s team and Russia’:-
&
‘Ex-MI6 chief says Donald Trump may have borrowed money from Russia to keep his empire afloat’:-
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/ex-mi6-chief-says-donald-10217616
Why did they deny it vehemently when the story first broke but now they own up to it?
Sorry mate - could you be a little more specific on what they denied - and what they are now ‘owning up to’?
That British Intelligence apparently gave the U.S. Intel they gained from surveillance of Trump Staff/Russia ties. Sorry that wasn’t clear. This information was clearly available weeks ago here in the States and some people got tossed under the bus for even insinuating that British Intelligence had or shared any such Intel with the U.S… Now they’ve owned up to it after the fact.
Ah, right - I get you.
I thought the accusations from weeks ago were of British Intelligenece spying on Trump/ Trump Towers on behalf of the American Security Services? Whereas the news linked by me is of the British giving a heads-up to their US counterparts after trailing/spying on Russian counterparts and possible Russian agents - going back some time - and as to a pattern emerging over meetings with Trump’s people (along with article that has the ex-MI6 Chief thinking that Trump may have borrowed money from Russia to help keep his empire afloat around the time of the financial crisis in 2008(-ish)).
I think they are two very different things - and the British Services were correct in denying that were spying on Trump/Trump Towers on behalf of the US Services.
The US and Brits, along with other allies often keep each other abreast of information and goings on (though likely keep the really interesting stuff from each other 😉)
Personally, I would not doubt the possibility of the U.K. doing the footwork for the U.S. overseas like this. Admitting it would be a far different matter of course.
It’s a possibility - though quite unlikely given the size of the UK security services these days - due to the cuts they have suffered over the past few years. It’s more likely we’d be getting more of our info ‘2nd hand’ from the US and our other allies than before - and concentrating our resources more on anti-terror (Middle East & North Africa) and the Russians.
I doubt we even spy on the US and other allies much these days…
Anyway, the rare.us article is stretching at best - and ignores the fact that it was the UK spying on the Russians that incidentally came up with a pattern of meetings by Trump’s people with those Russians - to which the US Security Services (along with our other European allies) was tipped off about. There is no proof in that story of anything apart from some very loose conjecture to try and give some semblance of credence (in the form of a question in the editorial title) to what Judge Andrew Napolitano mistakenly stated and inferred ‘from his source’ that we were spying on Trump (for ourselves or for the US).
If this is all we’re talking about, GCHQ denied what Judge Napolitano said simply because it was flat-out wrong. Not only wrong, but so outrageously wrong it would have been a treaty violation if true, which is why there was the raft of apologies afterwards. It wasn’t merely a matter of some talking head making shit up–it was a diplomatic incident. I’m sad to see some people (rare.us) insist on pursuing the imaginary storyline even now that the evidence proving it false is out there for everyone to see.
Both Clinton and Trump went through entertaining contortions to seem like they were against the Iraq invasion. Clinton claimed “she voted for leverage, not war”, while Trump said his real position wasn’t the pro-war one he said in public on tape, but was a secret private anti-war position he shared only with Bill O’Reilly. I think they were equally plausible stories (as in: not remotely), but I think a lot of Trump voters actually bought his line and thought he wouldn’t fight pointless wars.
‘British spies were first to spot Trump team’s links with Russia’:-
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/apr/13/british-spies-first-to-spot-trump-team-links-russia
&
GCHQ ‘told US security services about meetings between Donald Trump’s team and Russia’:-
&
‘Ex-MI6 chief says Donald Trump may have borrowed money from Russia to keep his empire afloat’:-
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/ex-mi6-chief-says-donald-10217616
Why did they deny it vehemently when the story first broke but now they own up to it?
It’s a general practice when dealing with classified information not to provide any information that could confirm or deny the existence of that classified information until that’s been cleared by higher-ups or lawyers, even when the press somehow got ahold of it to ask the question in the first place.
Frankly I think the common deny-first-and-then-discuss-when-cleared mentality seems very Soviet-ish, and can lead to the sort of dust-up we see around Rice, etc. The more appropriate method would be the “I can neither confirm nor deny” response, which, yes, sounds like Reaganite Plausible Deniability Newspeak, but at least it’s technically true. Neither method breeds confidence, but then that’s secrecy for you.
Money and power have always been the basis of her rhetoric.
I think we’re all clear on what you think of Trump. There is a little wonderment, though, about what noises you may hear when Clinton moves her lips.
^Same could be said for you and the others.
At least in this case, I heard more or less the same thing coming from Clinton as you. It’s the thought that Trump is less of a warmonger hell-bent on money and power causing the head-scratching around here.
Money and power have always been the basis of her rhetoric.
I think we’re all clear on what you think of Clinton. There is a little wonderment, though, about what noises you may hear when Trump moves his lips.
Big bombs vs. little bombs is more than just a difference in quantity. There’s a quality difference as well. Little bombs need to be targeted or they’re useless-to-counterproductive. Big bombs, just hit the general area and run for cover. Huge bombs and there’s no such thing as targeting. You absolutely will hit unintended targets, and you just shrug and say oh well.
Now I’d agree with the criticism of our modern-day fascination with so-called smart bombs. Your bombs that drop down air ducts in a building and pop out over the targeted toilet. The problem with smart bombs isn’t the tech itself, which works well enough, so much as the application. It used to be nobody would use ordinance like that in a city environment, because it’s crazy to do that. You have to send in ground troops, there’s just no other way. But now to avoid casualties on our end, they throw “smart” ordinance into a totally inappropriate urban setting, civilians are killed, but we claim innocence because we used the “smart” pixie dust to justify a really bad decision that absolutely did not seek to minimize civilian casualties.
The morality of it all, assuming you’re okay with the morality of war in general, really all boils down to civilians. You absolutely never target them. You minimize collateral damage through careful targeting. And you minimize war in general by using other means to resolve conflicts. And sometimes that’s still not enough, and war happens, and civilians die. We’ve been doing pretty badly on all fronts for a while, but I guess there’s something particularly awful about not even pretending to try.